FICOBank’s Four Field Offices Are Now Extension Offices

Starting out as field offices (FOs), with common function of making loans, as they’re restricted in taking deposits and servicing withdrawals, the remaining FOs of FICOBank in the municipalities of Aurora, Cabagan, San Mateo and Tumauini—all in the province of Isabela—are now officially converted into extension offices (EOs). They moved a notch higher after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) approved their conversion from FOs to EOs on February 3, 2011.

With ease, FICOBank got the mark of approval of BSP upon submission of and compliance to the latter’s long list of uncompromising requirements, such as: application for authority to convert existing FOs into EOs; corporate documents; capital requirement; risk-based capital adequacy ratio; CAMELS rating; risk management system; and business plans. The safety and soundness of the banking operations of FICOBank and the feasibility of its business plans for these extension offices were thoroughly evaluated by the Central Applications and Licensing Group of BSP. But FICOBank simply passed the evaluation.

As one of the post-approval conditions, FICOBank is required by BSP to manage, monitor and review, on an ongoing basis, the performance of these four extension offices and, whenever applicable, it shall enhance its risk management and internal control systems to include the risks that will arise from the new business that will be generated by these extension offices. Of course, these EOs will perform remarkably better than expected.

Although the transactions of these EOs will be taken up directly by their respective supervising branches, they will be treated as permanent banking offices (other than branch/head office) where deposits are accepted and/or withdrawals are serviced by tellers or other authorized personnel in accordance with the prescribed policy and guidelines provided by BSP.

The Aurora and San Mateo extension offices are directly attached to Roxas and Alicia branches, respectively. On the other hand, the Cabagan and Tumauini extension offices are under the administrative and functional supervision of the Head Office.

At present, FICOBank has no more field offices. The eight former FOs in the provinces of Isabela, Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya were now all converted into full-fledged extension offices. Their shift to a higher gear meant three things: first, better-than-before delivery of banking services; second, more competitiveness in the countryside banking industry; and third, getting more efficient in production. Finally, this corporate initiative enhances further the image and brand of FICOBank as a FIRST CHOICE bank.